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Diamonds and a wish for enjoyable retirement to Bernard Healey, longtime healthcare administration professor at King’s College and a constant source of informative, balanced opinion on health issues through the region and the state. “Giardiasis” may be a foreign word to many people today, but the water-borne parasite became a huge concern in the 1980s, and Healey helped combat the problem while working with the state department of health. He also did proactive work in the fight of the then-misunderstood but deadly disease of HIV/AIDS, took on a rabies outbreak and the deforestation threat of a the gypsy moth. The list of real-world health issues Healey helped tackle is long. The list of students and the rest of us he helped steer toward a healthier life through better data and better education is likely endless.

Coal, albeit a small piece, to Luzerne County Election Director Marisa Crispell for what appears to be a lapse in judgment regarding trips to Las Vegas and Nebraska with expenses covered by a company that sold the county election-related equipment. Crispell’s explanation was sound enough: She was asked to serve on an advisory board the company set up, and county assistant solicitor Michael Butera cleared the idea legally. But regardless of the legal propriety, the idea runs against transparency and Crispell, as well as Butera, should have seen that. County Council Chairman Tim McGinley offered one logical step that should have been taken: Crispell’s roll on the advisory board and resultant trips should have been publicly disclosed, even if Butera and those higher up in county management knew and did not object. McGinley offered a common-sense rule: “Decisions should always be thought out as to how people will perceive them.”

Diamonds to the International Barbershop Harmony Society and the local Wyoming Valley Barbershop Harmony Chorus for breaking a glass ceiling, as it were, with female voices. The international group finally changed bylaws last summer to admit female members, and our area’s contingent readily embrace the opportunity, adding four women to their ranks in time for their “Love at Christmas” concert Sunday at Ss. Peter and Paul Church in Plains Township. “I think our sound has changed,” co-director Phil Brown of Shavertown said. “It is bigger, it is brighter, and believe it or not, it’s easier to get a woman to smile when she’s singing than it is to get a man to do that.” Nothing in that statement is the least bit unbelievable. The group can still do all-male numbers whenever it wants; Now it has the option of a full range of voices, and even an all-female number.

Coal to Republican state Senator and Majority whip John Gordner, R-Berwick, for a confrontational approach to a problem that should clearly be bipartisan. Gordner has valid arguments against Gov. Tom Wolf’s efforts to speed up transition to new, more secure voting machines, but proposing a bill to put the brakes on Wolf’s plan to get machines in place by 2020 seems overly cautious in a state where the risk of election machine tampering has become a real threat. Better to work across party lines to get improvements done quickly, and to find ways to fund it.